Political journalism in South Africa as a developing democracy – understanding media freedom and responsibility

Abstract

As an emerging democracy in Africa, the political communication system of South Africa has undergone major shifts since the early 1990s. Democracy brought greater and constitutionally protected freedom of the media. This freedom was, however, seen as linked to certain responsibilities for the media to fulfil as democratic institutions. Ongoing clashes between the media, politicians and the government have made it clear that there is no consensus about what media freedom and responsibility mean in the context of a new democracy. In order to assess the political communication system within South Africa, against the background of the new wave of democracy that has swept the globe since the early 1990s, a structural analysis of the political economic, regulatory and policy conditions underpinning the political communication system is not sufficient. Attention should also be paid to the dynamic, cultural dimensions of political communication – the attitudes, value frameworks and mutual expectations of role-players in the system. Drawing on approximately 30 semistructured interviews with journalists, politicians and political intermediaries in South Africa as part of a multicountry comparative study, this article explores how values like freedom of speech, media responsibility and the democratic role of the media are understood by these various role-players in the political communication process. The aim is to identify emerging themes in the discourse around freedom and responsibility, in order to gain a better understanding of how these interpretations inform the sometimes strained relationship between the media, intermediaries and politicians in these emerging democracies.